


Chimaera

by Anonymous



Series: Is this thing (an)on? [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Hurt Peter Parker, M/M, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 20:52:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15804375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The upshot is that the tower is pretty much empty, especially since Mr. Stark only occasionally leaves his lab for food or a change of clothes. He even sleeps in there, Peter is pretty sure. So Mr. Stark doesn’t seem to notice or care when Peter starts staying in one of the spare bedrooms in the old Avengers tower.It’s sort of his room anyway, not in any official capacity but it’s the one he always stayed in after a mission if it was too late at night or he was too bloodied to go back home without freaking May out, which is something he doesn’t like to think about anymore.Peter feels lost after the battle on Titan. Mr. Stark doesn't seem to be coping well either.Sort of an AU (but not really), set post-Infinity War.





	Chimaera

“ _Woah,_ what is that thing?”

Mr. Stark’s jaw twitches, but he doesn’t reply. Probably because it’s like, the eighteenth time Peter’s said that exact thing in the last hour, but he can’t help it. He’s in Mr. Stark’s personal lab for the very first time, and he feels like his head might implode if he doesn’t ask at least ten percent of the million questions he’s got.

What he’s looking at now is some kind of complicated holo-projection that expands around them until it fills the lab with blue light. Mr. Stark does something with his hands that makes it contract back to its original size, only a few feet across.

“File structure only, right? How much of the actual data was JARVIS able to scrape?” Mr. Stark asks.

“Not much, boss,” FRIDAY replies. “I’ve been able to reconstruct some pieces of the original data file, but the majority was corrupted.”

“And the stuff that you found - show it to me.”

A few pinpricks light up red, and Mr. Stark rakes one hand through the projection, wiping away all the blue. The little red points grow, blowing up until each of them look like tiny, living brain maps. Mr. Stark pokes at the image, rotating and flipping and untangling the pieces. Eventually his hands drop to his lap and he just stares at it.

“Was that - is that pieces of Ultron?”

Mr. Stark rubs a hand over his face. “FRIDAY?”

“The projection is a visual representation of a data scan performed on Loki’s scepter, prior to the creation of Ultron. Only a small amount of data from the scepter was actually saved, and a significant portion of that was lost in Ultron’s attack.”

“So you’re trying to figure out how the mind stone works,” Peter says.

“And these are just scraps. We’ve got nothing.”

Peter’s at a loss what to say to that. Tony Stark had always seemed more like a living myth than an actual man - billionaire, titan of industry, real-life no-joke superhero. Peter had only been a little kid when Mr. Stark had fought off a whole bunch of Hammer drones at the Stark Expo, and then barely a year later Peter had watched on live TV as he’d carried a freakin’ nuke up a wormhole to save the whole city, and had somehow still come back alive. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.

Until now.

Mr. Stark’s been holed up in his lab for days, and Peter had finally come down here out of boredom. He hadn’t exactly been invited, per se, but FRIDAY hadn’t stopped him so he figured that at some point Mr. Stark must’ve granted him access, which was effectively the same thing as an invitation, right?

Plus, Peter really doesn’t have anything else to do. He goes out on patrol sometimes, but the streets are so empty - he goes more out of habit than anything else, if he’s honest.

He hadn’t been there for the immediate aftermath, but he’d seen some of it on news reports and youtube. The bridges and major highways had come to a screeching halt in an instant - driverless cars careening into each other and drifting off the road, planes veering off course and in a few cases literally falling out of the sky.

Teachers had vanished from classrooms, children from their parent’s arms, surgeons and nurses mid-operation.

Chaos.

Those left behind seemed to walk without seeing, shell-shocked.

The first thing Peter had done when they’d got back was head straight home, knowing May would be sick out of her mind with worry.

Except she hadn’t been there.  He’d waited, sometimes pacing, sometimes sitting with his hands clutched together to stop them from shaking. He waited for days, but she hadn’t come home.

She was gone.

He’d walked out of the apartment and hadn’t looked back.

 

*

 

Colonel Rhodes is busy crisscrossing the country doing “bullshit feel-good PR nonsense,” as Mr. Stark had put it. Peter figures it makes sense to have someone out there putting on a brave face, lifting people’s spirits and all that.  Apparently the UN had reached out to Cap too - offered full pardons all around in return for a little goodwill press tour to raise morale, just like the good old days. Peter hadn’t been privy to that conversation, but based on the aftermath he can guess Cap must’ve told them where to shove it.

Probably in nicer language, but still.

In any case, Cap had gone back to Wakanda to help them rebuild and as far as Peter knew, Natasha had made a beeline to check on Clint and Laura and the kids.

The upshot is that the tower is pretty much empty, especially since Mr. Stark only occasionally leaves his lab for food or a change of clothes. He even sleeps in there, Peter is pretty sure. So Mr. Stark doesn’t seem to notice or care when Peter starts staying in one of the spare bedrooms in the old Avengers tower.

It’s sort of his room anyway, not in any official capacity but it’s the one he always stayed in after a mission if it was too late at night or he was too bloodied to go back home without freaking May out, which is something he doesn’t like to think about anymore.

It’s a nice room - large and impersonal, and doesn’t remind him of home at all, which is perfect.

The downside to living at the tower, if it can be called a downside, is that Peter’s bed kind of smells like Mr. Stark. He’s not sure if it’s a laundry detergent thing or if it’s just sheer proximity combined with no one else being around, but what it boils down to is that Peter - embarrassingly enough and completely unintentionally - now associates the smell of Mr. Stark’s cologne with his morning jerk-off sessions.

Of course, the upside to living at the tower (if it can be called an upside) is that no one else is really around to notice.

Which is why Peter doesn’t realize right away that his door is still cracked open a couple inches -  at least not until he’s already been at it for a few minutes, boxers shoved down past his knees and legs splayed out haphazardly, fist pumping steadily.

He catches a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye and - oh god, that’s Mr. Stark standing in the doorway.

Peter freezes.

Mr. Stark’s gaze skims over Peter’s body, and Peter can feel heat rising in his cheeks and spreading across his chest in response. Other parts of him are reacting too - his dick twitches in his fist, and something in Peter’s chest goes tight when he sees Mr. Stark swallow in response.

His hand instinctively tightens at the sight of it, and before he knows it he’s coming all over his stomach, thighs trembling and breath hitching. Peter makes a strangled noise that he will absolutely deny later. He also doesn’t move his hand - not away from his lap, which his higher brain functions are screaming at him to do, but he also can’t quite manage to tuck himself away either.

“Mr. Stark?” he manages.

It spurs Mr. Stark forwards into the room. He sits on the edge of the bed, just next to Peter's side. His eyes skim over Peter's body, from his neck down his chest, then back up to his face, as if searching for something. Mr. Stark raises one hand, hovering just inches away from Peter's cheek.

He lets his hand drop back down, without touching.

Peter whines in the back of his throat. It kills him that Mr. Stark is close enough to touch him but won't for some reason.

Mr. Stark looks exhausted, his shirt is rumpled and his hair is mussed on one side, like he’s been running his hand through it, lost in thought. He looks both terrible and amazing at the same time.

Peter grins up at him, still embarrassed but also feeling a little dopey from coming.  

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey kid.” Mr. Stark offers up a weak smile in return.

Peter swallows down his jangling nerves, casts around for something - anything, to say. Wait, why was Mr. Stark up here in the first place?

“Did - did you need something?”

Mr. Stark starts to shake his head, stops, then continues. “Nope, nothing. Just… stopping by to make sure everything was okay up here.”

Peter’s face flushes again, acutely aware of just how comfortable he’s made himself in what is essentially Mr. Stark’s home.

“Uhh, yeah. Good. Everything’s good. Great, even! Thanks for, you know, letting me stay and everything.”

Something in the man’s face looks pained, but Peter is still a little bit post-orgasm high and stupid, and he can’t quite manage to connect anything he said with anything that would make Mr. Stark look at him like that.

“Don’t worry about it. You can hang around as long as you want, kid.”

 

*

 

Peter doesn’t go back to the lab for days.

But it’s not like he can avoid Mr. Stark forever, that would be stupid since they’re the only two here anyway and eventually the creeping loneliness propels him back downstairs, jittery and embarrassed but determined nonetheless.

When he gets there it kind of looks like there’s been an explosion. Pieces of equipment are sort of - melty looking, for lack of a better word.

Mr. Stark looks pretty bad too - worse than before, if that was even possible. His eyes look bruised and red, he hasn’t shaved, and something weird is going on with his suit. A piece about the size of a softball is sliding back and forth over his shoulders and around his torso, shaping and re-shaping into different tech as it goes.

“Is it supposed to be doing that?”

“Standard diagnostic test, working out the kinks on a few upgrades,” Mr. Stark says, without looking up.

Over in the corner, a table leg creaks and buckles, spilling most of its contents onto the concrete floor. Mr. Stark doesn’t seem to notice. He’s not looking at Peter, but that’s not actually out of the ordinary when he’s wrapped up in his work like this.

If they can both just pretend nothing happened, that’s a hundred percent fine by Peter. He casts around for another topic.

“Are you still going over the scans of the mind stone?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I’ve got a couple things I need to - ” Mr. Stark stops whatever he’s tinkering with, squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose.

He slaps himself and shakes his head as if to clear it. He looks over at Peter, blinks a few times, then seems to kind of zone out.

“Maybe you should try to get some sleep,” Peter tries. “I read that somewhere, like why people say if you’ve got a big decision to make to sleep on it first? Your subconscious mind keeps working on problems even when you’re not thinking about it on purpose. Like Archimedes in the bathtub, you know?”

“Kid, you’re not helping.”

“Oh, okay. Sorry.”

Mr. Stark looks over at him, and Peter feels the weight of failure all over again. They’d been _so_ damn close, if he’d just been able to get the gauntlet off a little bit faster they could’ve -

But they hadn’t.

The rest of the table collapses, sending tools and pieces of tech scattering across the floor. Mr. Stark raises one eyebrow as Dum-E rolls over with a broom and dustpan.

“Maybe you’re right, I should get some sleep,” he concedes.

The piece of his suit is still sort of crawling around his body, though now it’s about the size of a dinner plate. Mr. Stark taps the center of his chest and the armor deactivates as he walks out of the lab.

 

*

 

Peter dreams of Titan when he closes his eyes. Sometimes it’s the fight - he’ll open his eyes in a breathless panic, chest aching and fists clenched.

Other times it’s quiet, though.

The sun is hanging low on the horizon, just like it was when they were there, casting long shadows and painting everything in warm hues. He wanders through the ruins of the city, running his fingers over the surfaces, remnants of people long gone. He’ll know it’s a dream because sometimes when he turns a corner, he’s back home.

Sometimes May is there - burning a meatloaf in the kitchen, or dancing by herself in the living room while she folds her laundry.

“Hey hon, you’ve been gone a while,” she says when she notices him standing there.

Peter swallows. “Yeah, sorry. I was just - ”

“Out patrolling, I know.”

She gets kind of a wry look on her face whenever they talk about it. Peter hates to see that look, desperately wants to take back every second he’s ever made her worry.

She runs her fingers through his hair, tells him she just wants him to be safe, and happy.

Waking up from those dreams is worse. He climbs outside to sit on the ledge at the top of the tower, lets the wind whip around him until he can’t think anymore.

 

*

 

“Well, that clearly didn’t work,” Mr. Stark says when Peter sees him in the lab two days later.

Mr. Stark has obviously slept some, and he’s changed his clothes, which is probably a good sign. He still hasn’t shaved though. Peter hops up to sit on a clear patch of one of the remaining lab tables.

“It didn’t? Man, I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Mr. Stark is giving him a strange look. “Out of curiosity, you got any other bright ideas I should try?”

“Uhh.”

“Well, you think of anything, let me know.”

Peter swallows, then nods. He’s not sure what to make of the suggestion that he could have an idea that Tony Stark himself wouldn’t think of first. It’s miles beyond stopping bicycle thieves on the street, it’s even miles beyond stopping Toomes, and that fight had nearly killed him.

He’s snapped out of the memory by the sound of a glass hitting the counter. Mr. Stark pours himself a whiskey, then pauses for a moment and doubles it. He knocks it back.

“M- Mr. Stark?”

Not that he hasn’t seen Mr. Stark drink before, but not usually like, all at once like that. Usually he just sips something and at least seems to appreciate the taste. Also usually it wasn’t before noon.

“I’m trying out a new tactic.”

He kind of squints at Peter, covering one eye first and then the other.

He pours himself another drink.

“Is it working?” Peter asks.

“Not yet.”

Mr. Stark pulls up a lab stool to sit down across from Peter. “Why are you here, kid?”

“I wanna help, if I - if I can.”

 _Of course you do_ , Mr. Stark mutters under his breath. Peter isn’t sure if he was meant to hear that or not, but his super-senses don’t really give him the option not to.

“You’re a good kid,” Mr Stark says, “maybe a little bit too good. I probably should’ve said that earlier. This whole mess - it wasn’t your mess to fix. I should’ve kept you out of it.”

“I would’ve been involved anyway. You know why I can’t just sit on the sidelines when people are getting hurt.”

Neither of them mention the obvious - that May would’ve vanished whether Peter had stowed away on the ship to Titan or not. And yeah, maybe he could’ve stopped a few car accidents or whatever if he’d been in Queens during the aftermath, but billions of people would still be gone.

“Still. It wasn’t your fight, kid.”

 

*

 

It isn’t May he sees, the next time he finds himself dreaming.

“Peter.”

“Doctor.”

Peter isn’t really sure what Doctor Strange is doing in his dreams. The man doesn’t look surprised to see him though.

He tries to think of what he would say to the man, if he hadn’t dissolved to dust in the snap. But the truth is he hadn’t known Strange all that well or all that long, really. He has no idea what to say, except maybe the obvious.

“We lost the fight.”

“We did.”

Peter might be imagining it, but he could swear that there’s just a hint of a grin on Strange’s face.

“So what happens now? You said you looked into the future, saw all the possibilities - ”

“I saw fourteen million _possible_ futures, not all of them. In any case, that’s beside the point. What happens next depends entirely on the choices made by those who still remain.”

It’s not the answer he wanted to hear, but he supposes it’s something like what the real Strange would say if he were here. Or at least as close to it as his subconcsious mind can make up.

“This is kind of a weird dream,” Peter says.

“Surely you’ve figured it out,” Strange replies, “where we are right now?”

“Yeah, we’re on Titan.”

”Hmm, not exactly.”

 

*

 

_No one has actually told me why I’m in Berlin or what I’m doing._

He can hear his own voice through the door of the lab.

_Something about Captain America going crazy?_

Why would Mr. Stark have his videos from Berlin?

He enters the lab quietly, not wanting to interrupt whatever’s going on. There’s video of the fight at the airport on there - Vision had been there, and Scarlet Witch too. Maybe he caught something important on camera? Something that would help Mr. Stark figure out...

But Mr. Stark doesn’t look like he’s up to figuring out anything. The lab stinks of whiskey, and there’s a bunch of broken glass and a large stain on one wall that explains why. Mr. Stark himself is slumped in one of the rolling lab chairs, staring blankly up at the projection of Peter’s video.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter says, softly.

He doesn’t want to startle the man, he also feels like maybe he shouldn’t be seeing this. But Mr. Stark doesn’t seem to hear him. Peter is frozen in place just a few steps away, not sure what to do.  The video ends.

“FRIDAY, play again.”

Mr. Stark’s voice sounds like it went through a shredder. The sound of it kicks Peter into motion, walking forward and carefully laying a hand on his shoulder. Mr. Stark doesn’t even twitch at the touch, like he doesn’t even feel it.

“Mr. Stark, I think you should get some rest.”

It’s then that he seems to notice Peter is in the room. He whips his head around, looks at Peter for a second and then - laughs. It’s a strangely unhappy kind of laughter.

“Oh look, you’re back,” Mr. Stark says.

He’s still kind of laughing silently, gesturing towards the projection and then back at where Peter is standing next to him, but Peter doesn’t get the joke.

“Are you okay?” Peter asks, and then immediately realizes how dumb a question that is.

He’s at a loss what to do, but the question itself seemed to switch something in Mr. Stark’s brain, because suddenly the laughter is gone and he’s looking - well, still really drunk - but focused in a way he wasn’t before.

“I should be asking you - how are _you_ feeling, Peter?”

Peter opens his mouth to say he’s fine, but Mr. Stark’s next words stop him cold.

“Still dead?”

“Wh- ?”

“C’mon, lay it on me.”

Mr. Stark waits for a beat, not breaking eye contact, braced like he’s expecting Peter to yell and scream. It only makes Peter wish he could shrink down into the floor and escape. When it becomes clear that Peter isn’t going to answer - doesn’t even know how to begin to react, Mr. Stark starts talking again.

“You know, I saw Yinsen for months after he died. That was different though. I’d wake up middle of the night, and he’d be sitting on the end of my bed asking me how I could bear to sleep soundly when I’m the one who let him die in that cave.”

Mr. Stark finally breaks eye contact, tipping his head to the side, brow furrowed. Peter is still frozen in place, Mr. Stark’s words clanging around inside his head.

“And the thing is, I knew - I _knew_ \- it wasn’t the real Yinsen, I mean obviously it wasn’t because he was dead,” he looks up at Peter briefly, “but I also knew that wasn’t what Yinsen would say if he could. He always held me accountable for my shit, yeah, but there at the end there was something else too. He was ready to go, ready to be with his family again… but I kept seeing him, because I knew it didn’t make it any less my fault that he was dead in the first place.”

“Mr. Stark, I’m not - ”

But Mr. Stark motions for him to shut up.

“And now here you are, and because you’re you, all you want to do is help.” Mr. Stark gives him that same wry smile that’s eerily similar to Aunt May’s. “And god, kid, I wish you could.”

Peter flees.

 

*

 

He sort of drifts, spends a lot of time up on the roof of the tower, feeling the wind cut sharply against his skin, feeling his heart pounding. Feeling alive.

He curls up on his bed afterward. He dreams of May standing in the ruins on Titan, putting together a sandwich and talking about her day at work. The sun is low on the horizon, bathing everything in a rich orange glow.

Peter realizes that he’s gone on patrol every night and hasn’t interacted with a single person, except for Mr. Stark.

He shuts his eyes.

 

*

 

He finds himself back on Titan, frustrated and exhausted and feeling like he might fly apart into a thousand different pieces.

He shoots a web up to the crashed Q-ship and hauls himself skyward. The structure creaks ominously above him. He throws himself from one angle to the next, revelling in the feeling of it. The strain in his shoulders, the way his his breath is knocked out of his chest when he misjudges the distance and smacks against a support beam.

Peter keeps going.

Back home he can’t do this. Swinging through Queens, he does his best to _stop_ people from causing property damage. Here, he doesn’t care. In fact, property damage sounds like an awesome idea.

He tears apart the Q-ship, piece by piece.  Metal beams buckle under his fists until his arms are aching with it, his hands tacky with blood as he pries apart the outer shell of the ship, casting the pieces away haphazardly. Until there’s nothing left but scraps around him.

He kicks at the rubble, casting around for another target for his rage.

What he finds is Doctor Strange, seated among the ruins, elbows propped on his knees and his hands clasped loosely in front of his chin.

Peter doesn’t hesitate; he stalks forward, smacking the man’s hands out of the way and landing a punch square across the man's jaw.

He’s never actually hit anyone in anger before. It feels both liberating and gut-wrenching at the same time.

“Why did you lie to us?!”

He hauls Strange up by the hair. Tries to ignore the way his own tears and snot have left his voice sounding desperate and hurt, still trying to hold on to the anger that’s been keeping him going.

“I didn’t lie - ” Strange is saying, but Peter is in no mood to listen. Not yet.

“You told us, you said you looked into the future and you told us there was one way we could win! And we did everything - ” his voice breaks, “everything just like you said!”

“Peter.”

Peter releases his grip on the man’s hair, both of them sagging like puppets with the strings cut. He isn’t trying to hold back the tears anymore.

“You told us we could win.” It’s meant as an accusation, but it comes out like a plea.

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“Because we still can.”

“No, we can't.” Peter rakes a hand through his hair, frustrated. “Dude, we lost. It’s over.”

Strange pulls a face at him. “ _Dude_ , I know. We lost a battle, Peter. Not the war. You’re in the end game now.”

Peter frowns. “But Doctor Strange, I’m not - ”

He wakes up.

 

*

 

“I’m not a hallucination.”

Mr. Stark drops his wrench, and Peter winces as it clatters to the floor. He hadn’t meant to say that so loudly, but he’d kind of practiced this conversation a lot and somehow his attempt to be firm had come out as extra volume instead.

“I’m not. If I were a hallucination, I’d just be in your thoughts right? But I’m around all the time, not just when you’re here to see me.”

Mr. Stark swears under his breath, bends down to grab the wrench off the floor.

“Thought I got rid of you,” he glances back at Peter, dismayed.

“...Sorry, I guess?”

“Can you not do that? Don’t apologize to me. I should be apologizing to you, if you were actually here. Except you’re not, which is kind of the point.”

Mr. Stark closes his eyes. When he opens them again Peter holds out his hands, palms up as if to say, _yep still here_.

“Look, I’ll prove it to you,” Peter says. “Remember when you gave me my first suit back? The bag that it was in with the note on it?  I kept it. It’s folded up and stuck along the side of one of the plastic bins on the upper bunk in my room.”

Boom.

Mr. Stark rolls his eyes. “Of course you kept it, you’re an Iron Man fanboy. Making my failure to save you, specifically, all the more tragic. Kudos to you - or myself, I mean, for the excellent new guilt trip itinerary. It’s impressive, really.”

“What? No - this isn’t like that.” Peter flounders, he needs a new tactic. Something he would know but Mr. Stark wouldn’t. Something provable… something. Well, there is one thing he can think of. Mr. Stark is gonna be pretty mad about it though.

“I have an Ultron head in my closet,” he blurts out before he can think too much about the consequences.

“What?!”

“Yeah, uh when I was in Washington tracking Toomes’ men on that heist, I kind of ended up in the DODC storage facility?” He’s not sure why it comes out sounding like a question.

“That was you.”

Peter shrugs and then nods, lips pressed together in a thin line in a way he hopes looks appropriately contrite. The DODC must’ve known _someone_ had broken out of the facility, but apparently not who.

He can only imagine what the security team would’ve found after he’d busted out. Most of his webs had already dissolved by the time he’d hacked open the door, and thankfully he’d remembered to grab his TI-84 out of the wiring - replacing his backpacks all the time was one thing, but May had nearly killed him the first time he’d lost his graphing calculator too. Those things weren’t cheap.

What wouldn’t have dissolved away was the busted-open shipping container and all the wiring he’d yanked out of the wall in order to bypass the time lock.

“Well, yeah. I didn’t remember until I got home, ‘cause everything that happened at the Washington Monument, but I’d sort of stuck it in my backpack. Which I know is wrong, and I was totally going to bring it back as soon as I figured out a way to get back to DC… Anyway, the point is it’s still there, in my room. And you wouldn’t know that unless I told you, so. Proof.”

 

*

 

Peter doesn’t follow Mr. Stark when he goes to the apartment.  

He can’t face it again, remembering what those days and nights had felt like when he still thought May would walk through the door.  The dawning realization that she was one of the vanished.

When Mr. Stark returns, he sets the Ultron head down on the lab table with a thunk, levelling an accusing glare in Peter’s direction.

“In my defense, it’s actually a good thing I took that, because otherwise you would never have believed that I was really here. Also, that facility had some pretty glaring security issues, if you ask me.”

Mr. Stark looks chagrined at that, but it passes. They clearly have more pressing questions to deal with. “Okay yes, I believe you now. Maybe. So talk - how’d you get here?”

“You know how I got here,” Peter says with a shrug. “After the fight, you and the blue lady yelled at each other for a while, she flew off in her ship, then you fixed up the other ship and we flew home.”

“That’s not what I meant, kid.”

Peter doesn’t like to think about the trip back. Mr. Stark had been half-delirious, half-madly trying to patch systems on the alien spaceship so they could fly back home. Peter hadn’t been much better off, he’d spent a lot of time tucked into a corner near the back of the ship, trying to let the pulse of the engines drown out his racing thoughts.

There’d been a 50/50 chance that May was alive, he remembered thinking - a 50/50 chance anyone he’d ever known was still alive, really.

The odds themselves were simple, regardless of how complicated the emotions were that they provoked. But the odds that everyone he cared about would make it through were vanishingly slim, and he’d spent most of the trip back trying to remember everything Mr. Martinez had said last year when they’d covered independent probabilities, working out the odds.

“I- I don’t know. I remember the fight. I remember something happening after that - felt like I was being ripped apart. But then I woke up and I was fine.”

“You were dead.”

“Maybe? But I’m still here, so.” Peter gestures at himself.

Mr. Stark seems to take that as an invitation, reaches out until Peter can feel the pressure of a hand against his chest, the warmth of it seeming to spread right through him. When he looks down, Mr. Stark’s hand is sticking straight through where his body should be.

Peter blinks hard, dizzy at the sight of it.

When Mr. Stark notices he snatches his hand back. “Peter - Pete, you okay?”

Peter nods slowly.  

“Yeah, sorry I just - oh my god I’m dead. I’m really dead.”

“No, you’re not. Or you might be but like you said, you’re still here, right? So we’re going to figure this out. Got it?”

But Peter isn’t listening.

He’s too busy taking gulping breaths to try to keep himself under control, his chin tucked down against his chest. He’s never wanted May back so desperately as he does right now, to run her fingers through his hair and tell him to _breathe, just breathe hon_.

There’s a sudden pressure on the back of his neck. Mr. Stark may not be able to feel him, but Peter can feel Mr. Stark’s hand hovering just behind his neck, just as real as the table he’s sitting on. Everything in the room is solid except for _him_. He leans forward until his forehead is pressed close to the warmth of Mr. Stark’s chest and sobs.

Mr. Stark doesn’t seem to mind. Or at least, he doesn’t pull away.

Peter’s not sure how long he stays like that, but eventually the vice in his chest eases up and he can breathe again. He doesn’t know how Mr. Stark can tell the difference, but he seems to know when the worst has passed.

“I’ve gotta say,” Mr. Starks says, “this has to count as one of the weirder things I’ve ever done. And I’ve done a lot of weird shit. Seriously, my memories of 1987 alone would blow your mind.”

Peter snorts. It dawns on him that as far as Mr. Stark can feel, he’s been standing there cradling a patch of thin air for the past few minutes.

Mr. Stark lowers his arms and takes a step back, looking away to give Peter time to gather himself together again. When Peter glances up, Mr. Stark is looking at him sort of in the same way he looked at that projection of the mind stone.

Like a puzzle.

“FRIDAY?”

“Sorry sir, only one life sign detected. No other energy readings or anomalies. If Peter Parker is present in the room right now, he’s beyond the capabilities of my sensors to detect.”

Peter taps his knuckles against the top of the table. It makes a noise - he can hear it. From the way Mr. Stark’s eyes track his hand, he can hear it too.

 

*

 

Peter can touch things, but not interact.

It’s weird. He hadn’t thought about food at all until Mr. Stark asks him if he eats, how he eats. He just… hasn’t been hungry. Hasn’t been thirsty either. He can close his eyes and sort of drift, but he doesn’t think that it actually counts as sleeping.

He does feel tired though.

Mr. Stark, on the other hand, seems to have caught a second wind, spurred on by the challenge. Or maybe he’s just glad Peter isn’t a hallucination after all.

“You haven’t seen anyone else, have you? I mean, anyone else that can see you too?” He asks Peter, almost wincing away from his own question.

Peter shakes his head.

“I don’t think so? I mean, I see people in dreams sometimes, but.” He pulls up short. Does that mean Mr. Stark thinks -

His expression must’ve given him away, because Mr. Stark cuts off that train of thought. “It’s nothing. Just a theory.”

There have been a lot of questions like that, sort of random ones that don’t seem to go anywhere.  Peter can tell Mr. Stark is trying to wrap his head around the situation. The man spends a lot of time fine-tuning FRIDAY’s sensors and making faces at the readings, frowning over at Peter like he’s a misbehaving AI.

Peter spends some time trying to pick up a mug of coffee off the counter. He wraps his hand around it - can feel how smooth and warm the ceramic is - but no matter how hard he tries, when he lifts his hand the mug stays firmly in place.

He swats at the mug in frustration, feels his knuckles smack against the ceramic but doesn’t get the satisfaction of watching it fly across the room. When he calms down enough to look up, he finds Mr. Stark watching him again.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

Mr. Stark just shakes his head, waves one hand as if to say _don’t worry about it_. He’s about to say something, but FRIDAY interrupts.

“Boss, incoming call from an unknown number.”

“Since when do you allow incoming calls from unknown numbers? Hang on, how - ”

“My protocols are being overridden.”

“How is that poss - ”

A screen on the far wall flickers to life, showing what looks like another lab. After a few seconds, a girl in a lab coat comes into frame, sitting down and crossing her arms. Peter gapes at the screen - it’s not every day he gets to see a video call from the Princess of Wakanda.

“Anthony Stark, it really shouldn’t be this difficult to get in touch with you. What if there was an emergency, eh?”

“You’ve reached the life-like projection of Tony Stark, please leave a message after the - ”

Shuri looks at him flatly. “You really think I’m going to fall for that?”

“ - beep.” Mr. Stark drops the act. “Look, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the world sort of ended, and I’ve been pretty busy lately.”

 _Liar_ , Peter thinks.

“Anyway, great talk! Sorry I can’t help. FRIDAY, end call,” Mr. Stark says.

Except FRIDAY doesn’t end the call. Shuri’s expression softens minutely.

“Is that the only reason people call, when they need something from you? Well, not this time.” She pauses, glances at something just off-camera. “In fact I’m calling because I have something for you. Or, someone, really.”

She’s practically beaming by the end of it, and the sight of it makes Peter’s heart ache. Happiness is in short supply these days; everyone has lost someone, and some more than most. He knows Shuri lost her brother, along with many of her countrymen. To see her beaming with pride is almost like a shock to the system.

And then Vision steps into frame.

“Hello, sir.”

Shuri is talking again before Peter can even start to process what he’s seeing. Something about saved neural scans and reprogramming synapses that goes way over his head. When he glances over, Mr. Stark seems just as floored. He’s staring at Vision like he’s seeing, well… a ghost.

 _Another_ ghost, Peter thinks ruefully.

Vision is sort of drained of color - if he couldn’t see Shuri and the colorful lab behind them he might’ve assumed the video feed was in black and white for some reason. His forehead is oddly smooth looking, like it’s been patched. Peter swallows a lump is his throat. Of course it’s been patched, that’s where Thanos had plucked out the mind stone from his skull.

Eventually Shuri pauses, looking at Mr. Stark for a reaction. Thankfully by that point Mr. Stark seems to have shaken off the worst of his shock.

“Well, that certainly explains the security breach,” he says.

“My apologies, sir,” Vision replies. “If there had been any other way to reach you...”

Peter’s not sure how he does it, but the perfectly polite tone somehow comes off as accusatory.

“Yeah, sorry Vis. I’ve been busy.”

“You said that already,” Shuri says, unimpressed.  “Though I can’t see with what.”

Mr. Stark’s eyes flick towards Peter, his expression unreadable. He tips his head, gesturing for Peter to come into the frame. Peter steps forward haltingly, gaze fixed on Shuri and Vision, scanning for a reaction.

Shuri’s expression doesn’t change, one eyebrow raised in question.

But Vision actually grins.

“Mr. Parker!  My apologies, some of my memory functions are still - ” he trails off, struggling to find the words. “I thought you had perished in the battle, but I’m very glad to have been mistaken.”

Now it’s Shuri’s turn to gape. Peter does too.

“You can see me?” He hates the way his voice breaks on the words, like he’s still a little kid. Hates even more the way his eyes feel like they’re burning.

Vision looks nonplussed. “Yes, of course.”

Beside Peter, Mr. Stark lets out a long sigh of relief.

Shuri is still staring at them, eyes narrowing. She looks over at Vision. “You can see the Spider-boy in that room?”

“I - it’s Spider-Man,” Peter insists, unconvincing even to his own ears.

“Yeah, more like Spider-Ghost at present,” Mr. Stark says, waving one hand through Peter’s torso to demonstrate.

Peter flinches at the feeling of pressure and warmth passing straight through him. “Hey! Can you not do that, please?”

Mr. Stark shoots him a mildly apologetic look and shrugs, gesturing at the screen in front of them as if it was the only way to make his point. Peter frowns back at him, rubbing a hand over his chest. It’s not that it had hurt, really, just that it was kind of a creepy sensation.

Vision is looking at him like he’s trying to work out an equation, but Shuri’s expression is something else entirely.

“Has anyone else come back in this way?” she asks.

Mr. Stark shakes his head. “Not as far as I know.”

Peter doesn’t want to crush her rising hopes, but he also thinks it would be cruel to let her go too much further with that train of thought.

“I think if anyone else was going to show up, they would’ve done it by now. I mean, it’s been like...” he looks to Mr. Stark for help.

“Two weeks.”

“Two weeks since we got back and I’ve been here the whole time.”

On screen, Peter can see Vision repeating his words for Shuri.

“You're telling me that Peter Parker has been there the whole time, and you're only just telling anyone now?!”

Mr. Stark does some fast talking, carefully side stepping the whole hallucination theory and making it sound like he hadn't actually seen Peter until just recently. Peter nods along with it, backing him up on the misdirection. It’s not a great feeling, but he also doesn’t think Mr. Stark would want anyone to know how rough the past two weeks have been on him.

They talk for a while longer, pitching ideas and courses of research to pursue back and forth until eventually Shuri ends the call with an ominous, “Your Captain will want to hear about this, I’m sure.”

Mr. Stark grimaces at the words, but waves a hand at the screen to shut it down. Apparently Shuri and Vision have handed control of the system back over to FRIDAY.

“So, what do we do now?” Peter asks.

Mr Stark has already swivelled his chair over to one on the work stations. “First things first, updating my security protocols.”

 

*

 

“Oh Peter, please don’t tell me you lost your backpack again. I swear, I’m going to ask Tony Stark to make you one with a locator beacon or something. This is getting ridiculous.”

Peter is caught flat-footed in the doorway, about to explain that no, he hasn’t lost another backpack before he remembers that oh, yeah he’s never going to lose another backpack again.

“Sorry,” he says, deciding to play along anyway. What he wouldn’t give for another lost backpack to be his biggest worry.

May just grins at him, shaking her head. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll swing by Target after work tomorrow. I’m serious about that locator beacon though.”

Peter collapses onto couch next to her, closing his eyes. He shouldn’t be here - he knows that.

Mr. Stark and Shuri and Vision have been working round the clock, incorporating the data from Mr. Stark’s scepter scans with everything Shuri had been able download from her own work on the mind stone, plus all the SHIELD data from their research on the tesseract. Peter should be there, helping them in whatever way he can, but even without a body he just gets so tired sometimes.

Mr. Stark had caught him drifting off at some point, and had not unkindly ordered him out of the lab.  

Peter feels both frustrated and useless, but he’s also aware that if he isn’t actively helping the others then he’s probably hindering their research, so he’d left without argument. He’d stopped just outside in the hallway, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes for just a moment before he’d found himself back in the apartment, here with May.

Some of what he’s feeling must show on his face, because May reaches over and cups her hand under his jaw, thumb stroking across his cheek.

“Talk to me, Peter.”

He swallows. “Something bad happened.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t even know if I _can_ help fix it, not anymore.” He opens his eyes, glances over at May.

“Maybe it isn’t your problem to fix, you ever think of that?” May says. “I know you have your whole superhero thing and you know I’m not the biggest fan of you putting yourself in danger like that all the time. But you’re only seventeen. Let someone else worry about saving the world for a little bit, okay?”

It’s uncomfortably close to some of the things Mr. Stark has said to him. Peter chews his bottom lip, staring down at his hands, but May isn’t having it. She moves her hand, hooking her fingers under his chin and turning him to face her.

“Do it for me, please?”

“I - ” he starts. “I don’t think I can do that either.”

He feels like he’s being torn in half. It would be so nice, to stay here with May and just give in to the illusion that everything was normal again, but he knows there’s no way he can let everything go just like that, no matter how much he might want to.

 

*

 

Peter’s not really ready to head back into the lab again, still exhausted and a bit shaken after talking to May. He wonders if mourning her would be any easier if he didn’t still see her every time he closed his eyes.

He wonders if Mr. Stark thinks about him the same way.

He roams the empty penthouse, eyes skimming over the neatly arranged suits in Mr. Stark’s closet, his perfectly made bed. There’s a french press on the drying rack in the kitchen, it’s been there for the past two weeks. Peter realizes with a start that the last time it was used was probably the morning of the attack.

The rest of the penthouse is almost stiflingly impersonal. Chic minimalist furniture is arranged in each room, almost more like sculptures than an actual home. Peter’s bed is the only one that looks like it’s been slept in. He runs a hand over the sheet, wondering if it was like the coffee press on the drying rack - if he’d just forgotten to make it the last time he was here.

He heads to the bathroom, intending to splash some water on his face, belatedly realizing that it’s not like he can turn the tap on, or even cup the water in his hands if it were.

The soft sound of footsteps interrupts his thoughts. A moment later, Mr. Stark appears in the doorway,

He must be exhausted, because all he does is step out of his shoes and collapse sidelong across the bed, face turned towards Peter, eyes already closed. Suddenly the rumpled sheets make sense. Peter’s breath hitches, and it must’ve been loud enough to be audible because in the next instant Mr. Stark’s eyes are open again.

“Sorry,” Peter says in a whisper, although he’s not sure why since Mr. Stark is clearly still awake.

“Didn’t realize you were here,” Mr. Stark says, half into the duvet. He winces a bit, pushing himself up on one elbow . “I thought you were, I don’t know, wherever it is you go when you’re not here,” he waves a hand vaguely.

“Uh, no I’ve just been walking around a bit.”

Peter tries to focus on not thinking about the last time they were both in the room, which of course means that he can’t think of anything else.

“Did you sleep?” Mr. Stark asks.

Peter shakes his head. “Not really.”

“You should sleep.”

Mr. Stark pushes himself up off of the bed, hands clumsily tugging at the duvet as if to erase his presence. He gestures towards the bed, seeming to say, _all yours kid._

Peter is definitely tempted - those few moments he’d allowed himself to drift off in the hallway had only taken the edge off his exhaustion. But at the same time he can’t quite face going back there so soon, not if all he’s going to see is Aunt May again, telling him to let it all go. He edges towards the bed, stops when his fingertips are just shy of skimming over the blankets.

Mr. Stark looks like he’s dead on his feet. He’s staring at Peter with a strangely blank expression and sort of swaying, like he keeps forgetting that he has to hold himself upright.

“Stay,” Peter says, and he’s not proud of how needy it comes out. He’d meant it to be more of an offer than a plea, but he can’t take it back now. Might as well go for broke - “please?”

Mr. Stark looks between Peter and the bed. “You sure?”

He nods.

“Alright, kid. Fair warning - I hog the covers, also the pillows. Those?” he points at the three pillows scattered near the headboard, “those are all mine now, I called dibs.”

Peter shrugs. It’s not like he cares, plus he’s pretty sure Mr. Stark is just rambling to fill the silence as he gets himself settled on the bed. Peter follows suit, lays down stretched out on his back.

He can hear Mr. Stark’s breathing even out slowly, from just inches away.

He closes his eyes.

 

*

 

“What did you mean before, when you said we were in the endgame?” he finds himself asking Strange.

Peter doesn’t feel like hitting him again - all of the anger from earlier has been drained out of him, leaving behind only a bone-deep weariness.

Strange doesn’t answer right away. He’s looking at Peter, his gaze calculating.

“How have you been feeling recently?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that? I’m dead, it’s not like I can get hurt, right?”

The doctor ‘hmms’ ambiguously at that, starts walking around Peter in a slow circuit.

“You do know that’s not exactly true, don’t you?  You’re not technically dead. You weren’t turned to dust the way the rest of us were.”

“Well duh, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be able to hang around Mr. Stark’s lab whenever I’m not here,” Peter gestures around the ruins. His eyes narrow. “You know, don’t you... why I didn’t vanish like everyone else?”

“The simple answer is you chose not to. You fought with all your strength against Thanos’ will,” he pauses. “That alone shouldn’t have made a difference - the gauntlet has destroyed beings far stronger than you.

“The more complicated answer has less to do with strength than it does sheer dumb luck. Your unique powers gave you a warning, a chance to marshal your strength before the gauntlet’s power took hold, an advantage none of the others had. But more importantly, you have the ability to manipulate the fluctuating polarizations of small particles in your own body - ”

“I know what Van der Waals forces are,” Peter says, rolling his eyes.  “You’re saying that kept me from dissolving like everybody else?”

“No. I’m saying it’s one factor among several others that has helped slow the process down considerably.”

Peter swallows. “You’re saying I’m…”

“Still dying, yes.”

Peter sits down, hard, legs going weak beneath him. He’d almost come to terms with it - with being dead but not really, because at least that was final. Or at least as final as anything could be when Mr. Stark was bound and determined to fix it.

But this - he didn’t know how to deal with this.

“How do I - what do I do? You said I was in the endgame, so there’s gotta be something. I can’t just stand around waiting to fade away!”

“What happens next is entirely up to you. You have two choices - technically three, but you’ve already ruled out the first. You can let go, spend the rest of your days in this realm with your Aunt, safe. Or you can choose to return to the fight.”

Peter scoffs. “I’ll fight, of course I will.”

“Don’t make this decision so lightly. Victory is still possible, but it’s far from guaranteed. Even now, with everything that has gone right so far, we’re still looking at million-to-one odds.”

“Million-to-one is way better than fourteen million six hundred and five to one,” Peter fires back.

It belatedly hits Peter what Doctor Strange is implying, but not outright saying. In order for them to hit that one scenario, every single person has to make just the right combination of choices. Everyone.

“If I choose to stay here...”

Strange nods. “We lose.”

Peter stares back at him flatly. How the hell can he tell Peter not to decide so quickly when the choice is so obvious?  

“Peter, you need to consider both the possibilities and the probabilities here. Even if you decide to fight, our victory or loss doesn’t rest solely on your shoulders. Even if you chose to go back to the living world we could still lose, which is almost a statistical certainty, in which case you would never see your Aunt again. She would remain here, trapped in the soul realm.”

Silence stretches out between them. Peter hugs his arms against his chest; knows that the creeping cold he feels must be psychosomatic but still can’t help the shiver that travels up his spine.

 

*

 

He wakes up with only a hazy memory of the dream and a tight knot of anxiety in his stomach that he tries to ignore.

Mr. Stark is still zonked out next to him, his features dimly lit by the cool glow from his chest plate. Peter frowns at that, realizing that Mr. Stark keeps it on him all the time now, even when he’s asleep. Peter reaches out - tracing the edges of it with his fingertips.

He can remember being a little kid, doing the same thing on pictures of Mr. Stark in May’s magazines. Spending hours wondering how exactly that first chest piece had worked, how it attached to the skin, what that felt like.

For all that Mr. Stark has never bothered to hide that part of himself from the world, actually touching it now feels weirdly intimitate.

He pulls away, just by a few inches. He desperately wants to continue - to feel the warmth of Mr. Stark’s skin against his palm, the steady thud of his heartbeat, let his hand follow the gentle rise and fall of each breath. Mr. Stark wouldn’t even be able to feel it, which is both a blessing and a curse, and Peter can’t quite shake the thought that it would be wrong of him to take advantage of that.

“Hey, kid,” Mr. Stark says.

Peter snatches his hand back, but he’s too late. Mr. Stark may have just woken up, but his eyes clearly track the movement.

Peter bites his lip. “Sorry.”

“Thought I told you to stop saying that.”

“Right, sorry. I mean, no not sorry.” Peter shakes his head, wincing. “I’m not sorry?”

“Well now the word has just lost all meaning. Calm down, Peter.”

Mr. Stark pushes up to sitting, hands coming up to massage his temples. He looks over at the clock, staring at it blankly for what seems like a long time.

“FRIDAY, what day is it?”

“It’s Thursday, boss. You’ve been asleep for fourteen hours.”

Mr. Stark groans. “I miss anything important?”

“Several calls from Pepper Potts, as well as another data dump from Wakanda. Nothing urgent.”

“ ‘kay. On a scale of one to ‘giving the Mandarin our home address on live television,’ how mad did Pepper sound?”

“She was relieved to hear you were getting some sleep.”

Peter stays curled up on the bed, not sure what to do. He’s never really woken up beside someone else like this. It wasn’t like crawling into bed with May and Ben when he’d been little and scared of dark, and whenever Ned slept over Peter usually took the top bunk and let Ned take the bottom one.

Before he can think about it much further, he feels a warm hand hovering somewhere right next to his shoulder.

“You okay, kid?”

Peter nods into the pillow, wrinkling his nose. “Can you not call me that all the time?”

“Huh?”

“Kid. You still call me kid all the time. I’m seventeen, I’m not a kid anymore.” It occurs to him in a distant sort of way that he’ll be seventeen forever. Unless… unless what?  The thought slips away.

Above him, Mr. Stark is chuckling. “Only a seventeen year old would think that.”

“Except I’m not a normal seventeen year old, either.”

At that, Peter feels the bed shift as Mr. Stark moves away. He cracks open his eyes to see that Mr. Stark is turned away from him, sitting on the side with his feet planted on the floor.  “No, you’re not,” he says, mostly to himself.

“You… remember the last time we were here?”  

Peter’s not sure what makes him ask, except maybe it’s easier to have this conversation with the back of the man’s head rather than face to face, eye to eye.

Mr. Stark swears under his breath, his head hung low between his shoulders. “I thought you were a hallucination.” It sounds like an apology, or possibly an excuse.

“Yeah but, you didn’t _not_ like it.”

At that, Mr. Stark glances back over one shoulder. “Do they not teach you English at that fancy science school of yours?”

“Don’t try to change the subject. You saw me, and you stayed to watch. It’s okay if you liked it, ‘cause I did too.”

“Peter - ”

But Peter’s already clambering across the bed, swinging one leg over Mr. Stark’s lap so he’s straddling him, knees planted on the mattress on either side.

“Please?”

Mr. Stark’s eyes look a little wild, and from this close up Peter can tell they’re just a little bit glassy.

“If you want to go I can’t stop you,” Peter says, shrugging. “But if you want to stay, I’d um, I’d really like that.”

Peter waits for a few breathless moments, swallowing down his nerves, but Mr. Stark doesn’t make any move to leave.

He ducks his head down and slides open the zipper on his pants, does his best to ignore the heat rising in his cheeks at being watched so closely. This is what he asked for, after all. Doesn’t make it feel any less intense - Mr. Stark is close enough that Peter can feel each breath against the top of his head. Peter spits into his hand and then has to bite down on a groan when he feels Mr. Starks hands settle alongside his thighs.

The anxiety and weariness drop away as lets his hand fall into a well-practised rhythm, body curled in towards Mr. Stark’s own, lips nearly brushing the edges of his chest plate.

It doesn’t take long.

Peter comes with a shuddering breath, eyes shut tight, his world shrunk down to the phantom feeling of a hand rubbing up and down his back, easing him through the aftershocks.

They stay like that for several long minutes afterward, until Peter’s breathing has returned to normal and Mr. Stark is starting to fidget with repressed energy. Peter glances up at Mr. Stark, not sure what to expect.

“Okay not to ruin the moment or anything, but I should probably get back down to the lab,” Mr. Stark says with a bit a of an edge to his voice.

Peter nods, still a bit struck dumb from his orgasm. He can guess that this is sort of standard procedure for Mr. Stark, he’s read enough shady online gossip forums to know that Mr. Stark usually avoided morning-afters by simply disappearing to his lab long before morning was on the horizon.

Of course, that only works if your partner isn’t currently awake and sitting in your lap. It stings just a bit for Peter to file himself right alongside the many, many who have come before. Still though, worth it.

“So, can you uh - ” Mr. Stark makes a vague upwards motion with one hand.

Oh. Peter realizes that unless he wants to experience the eerie feeling of Mr. Stark standing up right through him, he needs to move. He shifts over on the bed, eyes tracking Mr. Stark’s hands as he moves to adjust himself.

Mr. Stark stands and crosses over to door.

“For the record, yes, I didn’t not like it,” he says, parroting Peter’s earlier words. Peter’s brow furrows, he’s pretty sure that means Mr. Stark did like it. He’s also pretty sure Mr. Stark is making fun of him, just a little bit.

“And I liked that too,” Mr. Stark continues, “but I’m also a perfectionist. And I know I’d like it a whole lot more if I could touch you back. So, lab.” Mr. Stark flashes him a quick grin and in the next instant he’s gone from the doorway.

Peter stares after him, dumbstruck.

 

*

 

It feels like he’s been spending more time here lately, the amber glow of the world so familiar to him now.

The Q-ship is still in pieces. Peter doesn’t feel the same vicious pride anymore when he looks at it, just an overwhelming sadness. He remembers the anger that had driven him to that destruction, but what he sees more clearly now is the anguish that had been fueling the rage.

“What happens if I don’t make a choice?”

He doesn’t bother turning, he can feel Strange’s presence beside him.

“Choosing to do nothing is still a choice.”

Peter nods, he knew that already. He’s not entirely sure why he even asked. “Why does it have to be me? Billions of other people got snapped away, you’re here too, why couldn’t you - ”

Peter stops himself, hearing his own voice. They’re the pleading words of the child Peter keeps trying to insist he isn’t any more. Doctor Strange remains quiet beside him, giving him time to gather his composure.

“How much do you know about what Thanos did in order to retrieve the soul stone?”

For the first time, Peter glances over at Strange, trying to figure out where this is coming from. “I know he killed his daughter.”

“Gamora. And he didn’t kill her, he _sacrificed_ her.”

“Same difference, from where I’m standing.”

Strange turns to face him. “It makes every bit of difference, especially from where you’re standing. The soul stone holds a special place among the Infinity Stones, Peter. It demands a sacrifice of those who would possess it.”

Peter takes a step backward, floundering. “What are you - I don’t understand.”

“I think you do.”

“I don’t think I want to though.” Peter stares down at his hands, then out into the distance.  Anything to avoid meeting Strange’s gaze. “How much time do I have?”

Strange lays a hand on his shoulder.

“Enough to say goodbye, whichever path you choose.”

 

*

 

By the time he makes it downstairs, Mr. Stark is seated on a lab stool with a large thermos of coffee in one hand and a tablet in the other.

There’s a video conference open, Cap and Shuri’s faces projected against the far wall.

Shuri is clearly deep in the middle of some technical explanation - Peter doesn’t have enough context yet to understand, but he can immediately tell that Cap is out of his depth on the more scientific stuff.

Peter makes a slow circuit of the room, wanting to listen in but not wanting to interrupt the discussion. Something about the hippocampus and... episodic memory encoding? Weird.

Mr. Stark glances over as Peter edges into his field of vision.

“Ah, perfect timing,” he says, waving Peter over.

Peter steps into frame, eyes locked on Cap for any sign of recognition, but there isn’t any. Cap just glances over to Shuri, who seems to have caught what was going on even without being able to see Peter and leans over to whisper a brief explanation. Peter deflates a bit.

Cap gives Shuri a brief nod, then looks back at the camera a grins in Peter’s general direction. “Hey kid. How’s Queens?”

“Fine! Brooklyn’s doing alright too, I guess,” Peter replies without thinking.

Mr. Stark steps in to help. “Kid says he’s fine, and Brooklyn is overrated.”

“Hey!” Peter cries out. Mr. Rogers is opening his mouth in protest, but Mr. Stark is already barrelling onwards.

“I’m gonna guess from all the squinting that you haven’t just gone nearsighted, but that you can’t see or hear him either, right?” He waves a hand towards Peter.

Cap shakes his head.

Peter shoves his hands in his pockets, can’t help feeling painfully exposed even though he knows only Mr. Stark can see him right now. He doesn’t like the idea of them focusing on him when there’s so many other, bigger problems to deal with.

He turns to Mr. Stark. “What’re you guys working on?”

“Something that’s probably insane.”

“It’s not insane,” Shuri rolls her eyes. “If we can just find a way to key the planted memories to a specific individual, then it doesn’t matter what time they’re implanted anyway! I’ve read the SHIELD files on Janet van Dyne, and I know you have too. The timing would be completely irrelevant!”

“Woah, wait. You guys are talking about the quantum realm, right?” He can’t quite keep the tone of wonder out of his voice.

“No, what we’re talking about is a fairy tale that somehow combines my BARF technology with Hank Pym’s particles to - ” Mr. Stark gestures vaguely “- implant an artificial memory into our past selves.”

On the screen, Shuri crosses her arms, raises an eyebrow in challenge. “Well, what other ideas do you have?”

“Just because it’s our only idea doesn’t mean it’s a good one,” Mr. Stark fires back.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Cap steps in. “We’ve got two of the brightest minds in the world - heck, maybe in the galaxy - working on this problem. It would be great if the two of you could try working together, instead of against one another.”

Most of Cap’s ire is clearly directed at Mr. Stark.

“Listen, I know you don’t like Hank Pym, but we may not have a choice here,” Cap says.

“Actually no, we don’t,” Mr. Stark fires back. “Because Hank Pym?” he says, and then snaps his fingers emphatically.

“What about his technology? He must have had a lab somewhere,” Shuri says.

“I’ve got FRIDAY running a global scan for any markers of Pym tech.” Mr. Stark sounds vaguely disgruntled.

“Good.” Shuri’s mood seems to brighten almost instantly, even though Peter can see she still looks strained and worn. “Our network is looking into it as well. Let me know if you find anything.”

Shuri steps out of frame, leaving just the three of them in an awkward silence. Peter only knows bits and pieces of what happened after Germany, but even with that he can only imagine what the atmosphere was like between Cap and Mr. Stark before he arrived.

But as it turns out, the awkward silence isn’t about Germany at all.  
  
“Peter?” Cap is looking straight into the screen, giving him the illusion of making eye contact. “You haven’t seen anyone else around, have you?”

Peter shakes his head. He glances over at Mr. Stark. “Just May and,” he frowns. “And maybe Doctor Strange? I don’t really remember, it’s all fuzzy. Sorry.”

Mr. Stark just shakes his head, not bothering to translate the rest.

“It’s alright, Peter. Just, had to ask,” Cap says.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

The shock of it never quite goes away, the reminder of just how badly they’d failed.

Peter guesses it’s some kind of defence mechanism; that when the tragedy is so vast, your mind just kind of conveniently forgets how to process that much grief. But then it comes back at odd moments - like now, the reminder that each one of the billions that were lost left behind their own Cap, still clinging to hope, or Shuri, carrying on as best they can with the pieces left behind.

He mumbles an excuse to Mr. Stark and heads upstairs. Not to his room but back to the roof, where he sits with his feet dangling over edge, arms stretched out into the wind until they go numb with cold.

 

*

 

“Hey, May are you here?” Peter calls out.

“In here,” she calls back, waving one hand from the couch. She’s got a book open in her lap and the TV on in the background, the sound turned down real low. “I’ve got a late shift at the hospital tonight, so I left you some money on the fridge for dinner, alright?”

“ ‘kay.”

He sits heavily in the chair across from her, hands clasped in front of him, elbows resting on his knees. There’s a lump in his throat that he can’t swallow down.

May takes one look at him and sets the book aside. “Spill it, what’s wrong?”

Peter looks down, not sure where to start.

“How much do you remember, about what happened?”

“Oh honey,” she reaches out, grabs one of his hands in between her own. “To be honest I don’t remember much at all. I was walking home, for a second I thought I must have picked up something nasty at work, but it was so quick. Before I could do anything I just felt myself… drifting away.

“All things considered, it’s not a bad way to go, right?”

Peter swallows. “Yeah.”

“I hate that you had to go through it alone though,” she says, squeezing his hand. “C’mon, talk to me.”

“My whole life, it felt like people kept leaving me.” It’s not really where he meant to start, but he keeps going anyway. “My parents, Uncle Ben - and I know they didn’t want to, but as a kid it still kind of felt that way. And when I got older I thought, law of probability, right? I couldn’t lose both my parents and Ben and then you too, the odds of one kid being that unlucky would have to be insanely small.

“When I got bit, suddenly I had the power to change things, and all I wanted was to keep you safe. I couldn’t follow you around every second, but if I could just make our neighborhood a little bit safer, then maybe the universe would let me tip those odds just a little bit further - ”

“Peter, it was never your job to keep me safe, you know that.”

“- and maybe I wouldn’t have to lose you too. I know it wasn’t supposed to be my job to protect you, but that doesn’t change anything. Other people need my help now, and I can’t just ignore that, not even for you.”

“I know. And I love you for that, even if it worries me sick sometimes.”

“Love you too.”

He squeezes her hand, as hard as he can without risking hurting her. Tries to memorize the lines of her face, the timbre of her voice. The way her brow wrinkles in concern as she reaches up with her other hand to cup his cheek.

“Honey, why are you crying?”

“I’m sorry, May.”

Peter lets go of her hand.

 

*

 

It hurts.

More than the bite that had changed him, more than a whole building falling down on his head. May’s hand against his cheek becomes a distant memory, and then nothing at all. It feels like every cell in his body - every molecule even - is on fire, threatening to burn him from the inside out.

Peter screams.

His back slams against something solid, knocking the breath out of him momentarily.

In the sudden silence he can hear a voice somewhere above him - yelling, frantic. Something is clawing at his hand, his hand which is burning more fiercely than every other part of him. He curls his body around it protectively, sobbing, but the burning only gets worse.

The hands move to his face, not clawing now but clutching either side of his head, shaking him, begging.

“Pete - can you hear me, buddy? You gotta let go. Peter it’ll kill you if you don’t, you have to let go! Now!”

Peter opens his eyes. Mr. Stark’s face is inches away from his own, screwed up in pain. Everything around them is blazing with light. He squints against it. Tries to form words.

Mr. Stark grabs his wrist and drags it out away from his body - Peter belatedly realizes the man is partially suited up - and slams it against the ground. He cries out in pain, his fist popping open involuntarily.

Almost immediately the blazing light vanishes, and so does the pain. Most of it, anyway.

Peter groans, squeezing his eyes shut again and rolling back onto his side. He thinks he might be sick. He coughs, and it takes a few tries to get his voice working.

“Wh… what?” is all he manages.

“Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing.”

Peter reaches out blindly, his uninjured hand finding Mr. Stark’s knee and gripping it like an anchor.

Mr. Stark takes his hand and hauls him upright. Peter sways a bit, leaning into Mr. Stark for support, then blinks down at their joined hands. He whips his head up to meet Mr. Stark’s eyes.

“Hey, hi. Yep, really here this time,” Mr. Stark says. “How’re you feeling?”

Answering that takes a minute. If he’s honest, he feels like he just went through a paper shredder, head first. A paper shredder that was also on fire. He feels like he could sleep for a week. He feels....

“Alive,” he says, half wonder and half disbelief. “How -?”

“This is just an educated guess, but if I’m right - and I usually am - it probably has something to do with that,” Mr. Stark says, pointing at something on the ground by their feet.

It’s small, no more than half an inch across, and glowing just faintly orange.

The soul stone.

It’s then that he remembers. He turns away, grateful for the way the wind whipping around them gives him a plausible excuse for the tears. He looks around, taking in gulping breaths of cool, fresh air, realizes for the first time that they’re standing on the very top of Stark tower.

Mr. Stark is crouched down behind him, one suit gauntlet activated so he can reach down and safely pick up the stone. Peter eyes it distrustfully, his injured hand still cradled against his chest, still throbbing with pain. He watches as the gauntlet transforms itself into a solid, thick container - wrapping itself around the stone until it’s completely contained in a small pyramid of nanotech.

Slowly, Mr. Stark pushes himself back to standing. He holds the pyramid out to Peter, who hesitates before accepting it.

“The stone required a sacrifice,” he says, barely above a whisper. He knows Mr. Stark must be waiting for an explanation, but Peter’s not sure he can put what happened into words, not yet.

“Peter, what did you do?”

“I had to,” he says, sobbing. “Strange said it was the only way.”

Mr. Stark pulls him in against his chest, careful not to jostle his injured arm. He brings one hand up to cradle the back of Peter’s neck, his lips brushing against Peter’s temple.

“I have to leave her behind. She didn’t want me to, I didn’t want to either, but - ”

He can’t explain any further. May was the only family he had in the whole world, and he’d left her behind, left them both completely alone in separate worlds. At the time it had seemed like the right thing to do, the only thing he could do - if it meant fixing the world after Thanos’ snap. But right now he didn’t feel like a hero, out to save the world, he felt like that five year old kid all over again, scared and alone, who didn’t understand why mom and dad couldn’t just catch a train back from wherever they’d gone.

Mr. Stark must realize at some point that Peter isn’t going to be moving under his own power anytime soon, because he shifts Peter in his arms, activating his suit once again and then lifting Peter in his arms.

He hears the familiar sound of the repulsors activating, and it’s a thankfully quick flight down to the landing pad. Before he knows it, he’s being set down on his bed in the tower.

Mr. Stark must’ve called medical at some point, because there’s other people in the room now. Someone is lifting his head and shining a pen light in his eyes, others are busy cutting away the remains of his suit, then cleaning and bandaging his injured hand. Peter only sees a brief glimpse of it before he slams his eyes shut - the skin looks badly burned, a mottled mass of white and black flesh, cracking in some places. The sight of it makes him nauseous.

Voices carry on above him, talking about scans and healing factors, and Peter is too exhausted to track the conversation. Mr. Stark is still there too, answering questions with clipped answers when he can, his own voice sounding strained and irritated.

Peter falls into a deep sleep, and dreams of nothing at all.

 

*

 

When he wakes, it’s to his stomach grumbling and his mouth feeling like it’s been stuffed full of cotton. He grimaces. His head hurts, too.

He moves to push himself upright without thinking and instantly regrets it. Pain shoots up from his injured hand, and almost immediately there’s a hand grabbing his forearm to take the weight off it.

He opens his eyes, still groggy - sees Mr. Stark leaning forward in his chair beside the bed, reaching out to hold Peter upright.

Peter nods his thanks, mouth still too dry to speak, as he leans back against the headboard.

“FRIDAY, let Helen know he’s awake,” Mr. Stark says.

“Already done, boss.”

“Good,” Mr. Stark says, handing Peter a glass of water from the nightstand, which he chugs gratefully.

It’s only a few moments later that Doctor Cho is striding into the room with a couple of nurses in tow. Peter’s only met her a couple of times before. She’s kind, but also direct, asking a litany of questions and nodding at his answers as one of the nurses scribbles down notes. Mr. Stark watches the whole process in silence. It leaves Peter feeling a little bit like a lab experiment. 

She checks his bandages, gives him a couple pills for the pain, and leaves him with orders to eat and rest.

A nurse ducks out and comes back with a tray of breakfast, pancakes and eggs and bacon, which smells like heaven and Peter tears through it with abandon, suddenly starving. Doctor Cho nods in approval as the nurses gather up their gear and begin to file out.

Once they all leave, the room is eerily silent again.

“I should - ah,” Mr. Stark hesitates, fidgeting with something hanging around his neck. He pulls it up over his head and holds it out to Peter. “I should give this back to you. I took it back while they were working on you.”

It’s the infinity stone, still wrapped up in its nanotech shell. Peter looks at it, without reaching out to take it back. He shakes his head.

“I don’t want it,” he says. “You keep it. You can figure out how to use it.”

Mr. Stark’s hand wavers, but he doesn’t let it drop. Instead Mr. Stark picks up his good hand, turning it over and sets the pyramid in his palm, wrapping his hands around Peter’s, closing it around the stone.

“No can do, kid. Last time I had an infinity stone I used it to create Ultron,” he says, the pain obvious in his voice. “You made the sacrifice for it, you get to decide how it’s used. It’s yours.”

Peter reluctantly pulls the chain over his head, letting the stone settle against his bare chest. It feels heavy. Mr. Stark watches, his expression unreadable.

“Well, I should let you get some rest,” Mr. Stark says suddenly, standing up and wiping his palms on the front of his slacks.

“Don’t!” Peter says before he can stop himself. “Please don’t go. I’m sorry, I just, I know you have other stuff to do but I really don’t want to be alone right now. Please.”

Mr. Stark stays where he is, one fist clenching and unclenching by his side.

“Are you - are you mad at me, for - ” Peter doesn’t even know for what, for coming back?  For taking the stone, when Mr. Stark so obviously wants to study it, figure out how to use it to fix everything?

But Mr. Stark seems to deflate at the question. He pinches the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.  
  
“No, kid, I’m not angry. I thought you’d probably want some time alone,” he pauses, glancing at Peter, “but I can stay, if you want me to.”

Peter nods emphatically, reaching out with his injured hand since that’s the one that’s closest. Mr. Stark reaches out, very gingerly clasps Peter’s hand in his own as he steps closer to the bed. Peter leans forward until his forehead is pressed against Mr. Stark’s stomach. He can feel Mr. Stark stiffen at the contact at first, and then seems to deliberately relax.

Peter reaches up with his good hand, pulling him down onto the bed with him, rolling over to his other side to make room.

Mr. Stark goes easily, settling in behind Peter with one arm crooked under Peter’s head and the other hand trailing up and down his side. He can feel Mr. Stark’s breath against the back of his neck, the hard edges of his chest piece pressing against his spine with each rise and fall of the man’s chest. Peter finds himself fighting off sleep, too warm and comfortable to put up much resistance.

“Believe me now?” he mumbles.

Mr. Stark’s hand stills. “About what?”

“ ‘m not a hallucination.”

There’s a soft chuckle behind him.  “Yeah, kid. I believe you now.”

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> It turns out that if you post to an anon collection and then add that fic to a series, it stays anon! So, I'll be archiving my P/T fic here: [Is this thing (an)on?](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1200232), if anyone is interested in my other stuff!


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